Quote:
Originally Posted by mrmikel
That is the crux of the issue for user none. He does have full time job writing payment system software, and Sigil got to be just too much. It appears he was willing to do people a favor, but not give up everything else in his life in the bargain.
I think the key is for our "white knight" to find some software already out there that will handle 70% of the job, so it isn't necessary to re-invent everything in the editor. It would only be necessary to trim and tuck here and there on the editor and add particular epub features and necessities.
If something like that can be found, it would reduce development and support time. It is the follow up and support that is the crux of the issue. For editing epub2, we can live with existing Sigil. As little as some of us like it, epub3 will be a larger and larger issue as time goes by and this version ought to handle epub3 and epub2 both without requiring a total rewrite.
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Hmmm. I think if something out there already did "70% of what's needed," this conversation would be over.
Myself, I'm not really in favor of blending Sigil into Calibre. Yes, I know that many of you use Calibre to convert PD books, etc., but we don't. I use Calibre as a cataloging tool. We don't use it to make books. I'm feeling rather apprehensive about the entire approach. I feel as though what is happening, as I look at this thread, is that Sigil's functions will be subsumed into Calibre, and the power and strength of Sigil will, by necessity, end up being directed at Calibre's user-base, which has extremely little in common with "my" user base, or the folks that use Sigil to make ePUBs from scratch (from already-cleaned HTML, or what-have-you).
This is not to discount or denigrate or in any way appear ungrateful to Kovid; his offer is extremely generous. But his user base and ours are not the same. Calibre attracts users like the people here--find PD book, run it through Calibre to get a base, then clean it up; or buy a book, hate the coding, run it through Calibre to get a base, then clean it up--or it attracts people that I see often, who don't want to know from HTML, so they take a PDF and run it through Calibre to get an ePUB or MOBI (or whatever).
I just can't see that
Sigil's primary functions, as an ePUB editor, will end up being supported very heavily by the mainstay of the Calibre users, which means that Kovid's attentions, and that of the people who donate their time or money there, won't be on that. I mean, we're all sitting here right now waiting for someone to say, "Oh, I'll write the editor," and this is a forum full of Sigil-ites.
Just my observation, at this point in the discussion. (I don't code in C++, or in Python, for that matter, just so that's clear, or I'd donate my own time.)
Hitch